The 2013 World Gymnastics Championships danced, vaulted, swung and more generally played out in Belgium last week. In the women's competition, young American gymnast Simone Biles won the all-around gold medal. One of her competitors, Italian gymnast Carlotta Ferlito, was not happy about this. Her stereotypically "sore loser" comments got racial. Speaking to an Italian TV reporter following her the balance beam finals (Ferlito placed fifth; Biles third), she said she would need "to paint her face black" to receive better scores in future — referencing what she believed to be biased scores from the judges.

Following much criticism, Ferlito has since said sorry. "I want to apologize with the Americans girls. I didn't want to sound rude or racist. I love Simone and I'm a huge fan of USA gymnastics," she tweeted.

David Ciaralli, the spokesman for Italy's gymnastics federation, also decided to weigh in. He made matters worse. Ciaralli recently wrote a Facebook post that read as follows: "Why aren't there blacks in swimming? Because they don't have the buoyancy. Is gymnastics becoming the same thing, to the point of wanting to be colored?" Yes, it actually says all that. When contacted by The Chicago Tribune, who presumably asked a question along the lines of "WTF?" he apologized: "Possibly in saying this, I made a mistake, and I am sorry… What I said was my thoughts, not the official thoughts of the federation."

Steve Perry, president of the U.S.A.'s gymnastics federation, provided a statement saying "there is no place for racial insensitivity [in gymnastics]." He'll reportedly be contacting the Italian gymnastics federation also to ask "WTF?" though phrased more politely as "clarification on its comments."